Note 27 — INTRODUCTION.

What would Dr. Whitaker have thought of the following explosion, in which Webster sounds the tocsin with a vehemence and vigour which no Macbriar or Kettledrumle of the period could have surpassed. The extract is from his Judgment Set and Books Opened:—

"All those that claim an Ordination by Man, or from Man, that speak from the Spirit of the World, from Wit, Learning and Humane Reason, who Preach for Hire, and make Merchandize of the Souls of Men; I witness they are all Baal's Priests and Idol-Shepherds, who destroy the Sheep, and are Theives and Robbers, who came not in by the Door of the Sheep-fold, but climbed up another way, and are the Magicians, Sorcerers, Inchanters, Soothsayers, Necromancers, and Consulters with Familiar Spirits, which the Lord will cut off out of the Land, so that his People shall have no more Soothsayers; and as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these resist the Truth; Men of corrupt Minds, reprobate concerning the Faith; but they shall proceed no farther, for their Folly shall be manifest to all Men, as theirs also was. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the Errors of Balaam, for Reward, and Perished in the Gainsaying of Core. These are Spots in your Feasts of Charity, when they Feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: Clouds they are without Water, carried of Winds; Trees, whose Fruit withered, without Fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the Roots: Raging Waves of the Sea, foaming out their own Shame, wandring Stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of Darkness for ever."